
God's response to it. Boaz was a kinsman-redeemer. The Lord was working
out their salvation. The kinsman-redeemer (Hebrew
goel)
"was a redeemer,
a protector, a defender of the interests of the individual and of the group."—
Roland de Vaux,
Ancient Israel, vol.
1 (NY: McGraw-Hill Book Co.,
1961), p. 21. The kinsman-redeemer would buy the freedom of the Israelite
who had to sell himself into slavery, and if, because of poverty, a person had
to sell the land inherited from ancestors, the
goel
had first right to purchase it
so as to keep it in the family. (See Lev. 25:24-49.) Jeremiah acted the part of
the kinsman-redeemer in Jeremiah 32:6-9 when the prophet bought the field
of his cousin Hanameel.
Eventually the term acquired a religious aspect. Scripture calls God a
goel
in such passages as Job 19:25; Psalms 19:14; 78:35; and Jeremiah 50:34.
The Hebrew word "suggests a close personal relationship between re-
deemer and redeemed: it is thus appropriate of the God of the covenant."—
R. Allan Cole,
Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary
(Downers Grove,
Ill.: Inter Varsity Press, 1973), p. 86. It is used freqently in the book of
Isaiah to describe God's redemption of His people from Babylon. (See Isa.
41:14; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 49:7; 59:20; 63:16.)
THINK IT THROUGH: The kinsman-redeemer was bound by family
ties to those he rescued. Do these same kinds of ties bind Jesus to us?
FURTHER STUDY AND MEDITATION:
"Those who accept Christ as
their personal Saviour are not left as orphans, to bear the trials of life alone.
He receives them as members of the heavenly family; He bids them call His
Father their Father. They are His 'little ones,' dear to the heart of God,
bound to Him by the most tender and abiding ties. He has toward them an
exceeding tenderness, as far surpassing what our father or mother has felt
toward us in our helplessness as the divine is above the human.
"Of Christ's relation to His people, there is a beautiful illustration in the
laws given to Israel. When through poverty a Hebrew had been forced to
part with his patrimony, and to sell himself as a bondservant, the duty of
redeeming him and his inheritance fell to the one who was nearest of kin. . . .
So the work of redeeming us and our inheritance, lost through sin, fell upon
Him who is 'near of kin' unto us. It was to redeem us that He became our
kinsman. Closer than father, mother, brother, friend, or lover is the Lord
our Saviour. 'Fear not,' He says, 'for I have redeemed thee, I have called
thee by thy name; thou art Mine.' Since thou wast precious in My sight,
thou has been honorable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for
thee, and people for thy life.' Isaiah 43:1, 4.
"Christ loves the heavenly beings that surround His throne; but what shall
account for the great love wherewith He has loved us? We cannot under-
stand it, but we can know it true in our own experience. And if we do hold
the relation of kinship to Him, with what tenderness should we regard those
who are brethren and sisters of our Lord! Should we not be quick to recog-
nize the claims of our divine relationship? Adopted into the family of God,
should we not honor our Father and our kindred?"—The
Desire of Ages,
p.
327.
SUMMARY:
Writhing in the pain of tragedy, Naomi lodged a complaint
against God. But she did not let her questions destroy her faith. She clung
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